hat for, I wonder? Is he
expecting to meet somebody?"

This Cottonwood Bottom, as it was called, was on the Bar-T range. Nobody
really had business here save the ranch employees. The trail to the
_hacienda_ was not a general road to any other ranch or settlement.
It was curious that this lone man should come here and make camp.

She came in sight of him ere long. He had kindled a small fire, over
which already was a battered tin pot in which coffee beans were stewing.
The rank flavor was wafted through the grove.

His scrubby pony was grazing, hobbled. The man's flapping hat brim hid
his face; but Frances knew him.

It was Pete, the man who had been orderly at the Soldiers' Home, at
Bylittle, Mississippi, and who had frankly owned to coming to the
Panhandle for the purpose of robbing Captain Dan Rugley.

The girl of the ranges was much puzzled what to do in this emergency.
Should she creep away, ride Molly hard back to the ranch-house, arouse
Sam and some of the faithful punchers, and with them capture this
ne'er-do-well and run him off the ranges?

That seemed, on its face, the more sensible if the less romantic thing
to do. Yet the very publicity attending such a move was against it.

The suspicion that Captain Rugley had a treasure hidden away in the old
Spanish chest was not a general one. It might have been lazily discussed
now and then over some outfit's fire when other subjects of gossip had
"petered out," to use the punchers' own expression.

But it was doubtful if even Ratty M'Gill believed the story. Frances had
heard him scoff at the man, Pete, for holding such a belief.

If she attempted to capture this tramp by the fire, making the affair
one of importance, the story of the Spanish treasure chest would spread
over half the Panhandle.

"What the boys didn't know wouldn't hurt them!" Frances told herself,
and she would not ask for help. She had already laid her plans and she
would stick to them.

And while she hesitated, discussing these things in her mind, a figure
afoot came down the slope toward the ford and the campfire. It was Ratty
M'Gill, walking as though already footsore, and with his saddle and
accoutrements on his shoulder.

The high-heeled boots worn by cowpunchers are not easy footwear to walk
in. And a real cattleman's saddle weighs a good bit! Ratty flung down
the leather with a grunt, and dropped on the ground beside the fire.

"What's the matter with you?" growled the man, Pete